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Well, for today, I thought that I’d talk about one of my favourite types of fiction – “middle brow” fiction. This is the type of fiction that includes all of the thrills, creativity and cool stuff you’ll find in “low brow” fiction, but with the level of characterisation, linguistic skill, thematic complexity, descriptive depth etc.. that you’ll find in more “high brow” fiction.

It is quite literally the best of both worlds and it is utterly awesome. Yet, it is annoyingly difficult to define. Ok, I could probably list examples of it that I’ve read (like “Box Nine” by Jack O’Connell, “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson or, the novel I’m reading at the moment, “Weaveworld” by Clive Barker), but it’s really difficult to spot it at a glance.

I mean, it’s easy enough to see whether a novel is a fun “low brow” thriller/horror/detective/sci-fi novel or a prestigious, intellectual and realistic “literary” novel just by looking at the cover. One has excitingly dramatic cover art and the other usually has trendily boring cover art that is filled with adoring critic quotes. But, things that fall in between these categories are usually a little bit more difficult to spot at a glance.

But, I guess that this is part of the charm of “middle brow” fiction – that brilliant sense of surprise when you sit down to read what you think will be an ordinary thriller, horror, sci-fi or detective novel only to find that it’s a lot more atmospheric, deep, intelligent, unique or vivid than you had expected 🙂 Or, when you think “I should read something intellectual“, only to find that the book you’ve pushed yourself to read is a lot more gripping than you’d expected 🙂

Yet, this type of fiction is really difficult to define. Is it genre fiction with extra depth and complexity? Is it literary fiction with an actual plot, some imagination and a proper narrative drive? Is it both of these things?

Surprisingly, it’s actually easier to think of non-book metaphors for it. It’s kind of like the equivalent of a more prestigious popular TV show like “Game Of Thrones”, “Twin Peaks” or “Boardwalk Empire” – which contains enough depth and complexity to be more than mindless Hollywood entertainment, whilst also still being entertaining enough to make you want to binge-watch entire seasons of it.

Another interesting thing about “middle brow” fiction is that it also reminds us of what popular fiction used to be like. Yes, there’s a lot to be said for more fast-paced, informal and “matter of fact” modern narration – it keeps the story wonderfully gripping and it also means that modern books can compete with smartphones, the internet, videogames etc.. for people’s attentions. But, at the same time, it can also lack a certain depth and atmosphere that even the most “low brow” of older novels often used to have.

To give you an example, take a look at “Erebus” by Shaun Hutson (1984). This is a fast-paced, ultra-gruesome horror novel about zombie vampires that I first discovered when I was a young teenager during the early-mid 2000s. It just seemed like a really cool, fun and rebellious novel back then. But, when I re-read it as an adult, I was surprised by how complex the writing sometimes was when compared to some of the more contemporary novels I’d read in the meantime.

Here’s a quote from “Erebus” to show you what I mean: “Elsewhere in the office things were at various stages of organized pandemonium as other reporters rushed to complete their assignments, hampered by the fact that their typewriting dexterity had not yet extended to more than one finger“.

This was “low brow” popular entertainment in 1984! A mere 35 years ago, a novel containing complex sentences like this was seen as a mindless “everyday” way to pass the time (like videogames, Facebook or Youtube would be these days). Just think about that for a second.

Another cool thing about reading “middle brow” fiction is that it’s kind of like a reward for having to read more dull “high brow” fiction in the past (eg: the set texts at school/college/university). Thanks to your prior experience, not only can you read it with relative ease – which feels like playing a videogame you’re really good at- but you also actually have fun at the same time. It’ll make you see the wisdom of having to slog through the works of writers like Shakespeare, Bronte, Dickens, Austen, Fowles, Woolf etc.. when you were younger.

Of course, as a side note, one amusing irony is that Shakespeare and Dickens were, at the time they were originally writing, “low brow” popular entertainment. I mean, just do some research into 16th century theatre audiences (eg: wild, rowdy, chaotic etc..) or into how many of Dickens’ novels were originally published (eg: popular serials in newspapers/magazines).

Anyway, “middle brow” fiction shows you that reading all of those boring books means that you can breeze through much more interesting books with a sense of ease and skill that may very well catch you by surprise and make you feel like some kind of expert or intellectual.

In short, “middle brow” fiction is totally and utterly amazing. Yes, it was probably more popular in the past than it is now (I mean, all of the examples I listed earlier in the article come from the 1980s/90s) but – in a landscape where popular modern novels often seem to be sharply divided between grim detective thrillers/ Fifty Shades Of Twilight and pretentious plot-less “literary” novels, there has never been more of a need for intelligent, well-written novels with a good gripping plot 🙂

Anyway, the theme of this year’s collection was “The modern world”, which allowed me to include a good mixture of horror, dark comedy, satire and even a little bit of dystopian sci-fi too 🙂 If you don’t have time to read the whole collection, the best stories are: “VR“, “Zero“, “Update“, “Void” and “Killer App”

The production for this collection was also a bit random too. In short, due to being busy with lots of stuff, I’d expected to only have time to write five stories rather than the full ten. Because of this, I also wrote (and queued up) this year’s stories in the opposite order to the order they were posted here. So, if you want to read the stories in the order I actually wrote them, then start with the tenth one and work backwards.

Anyway, here are the stories 🙂 Enjoy 🙂

–“VR“: In the neon-drenched future, Trey is on the run from Blue-Corp’s security bulls after a hack went wrong. But, things aren’t quite what they seem.

–“Rules“: University students Joanne and Toby have got tickets for the Halloween party at the student’s union. But, can they comply with the union’s costume policy?

– “Zero“: Bert is congratulating the branch managers of his company after a few contractual changes have resulted in increased profits and relatively little grumbling from his employees. What could possibly go wrong for him?

Nestled amongst row upon row of icons, the little grey square with the smiley face on it didn’t stand out. Beside it, a crimson chameleon and a maroon camera jostled for Laura’s attention. They had the advantage. Warm colours get people’s attention. Every app designer knew that. It was one of a million little brain hacks that should have been second-nature to whoever made the grey square.

Laura’s finger hovered over her phone screen. Against the red tiles, the little grey square receded like a stone at the bottom of a pond. Below it, the words “Happy Time” sat forlornly. Her eyes drifted over to the camera beside it. It was a “Blood Red Halloween Selfie Filter“. Only ninety-nine cents. It looked suspiciously like the “Rose Red Valentine Selfie Filter” she’d bought a few months earlier.

Her eyes drifted back to the grey square. It smiled back at her. Happy Time. There wasn’t a price below it. Her eyes flitted over to the chameleon icon. ‘Privacy VPN‘. Ten bucks per month. She thought about tapping away and doing a currency conversion. Ten bucks had been about seven quid the last time she’d checked. The economy couldn’t have gotten that worse in that amount of time, could it?

She shook her head. What the hell did she need a privacy VPN for anyway? If any of the five intelligence agencies currently watching her internet traffic actually paid any attention, the worst thing they’d discover was the obscene amount of time she spent on Facebook.

Her pattern of likes was so bland that every political party, even the fringe ones, thought that their campaign ads might stand a chance come election time. Maybe that was suspicious in and of itself? Maybe some suits in an undisclosed location had thought she was covering something up? Maybe they had people watching her right now? Maybe she needed that privacy VPN after all?

Laura sighed. No, that in itself would look suspicious. Her finger hovered above the icon. This was silly. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Plus, seven quid a month too. It’d be smarter to buy nothing. It wasn’t as if her phone’s memory chip was short of apps. Half of them cried out for updates every day. It was hit or miss whether she recognised their names.

Do the smart thing. Buy nothing. What’s the point of buying something new if you aren’t going to use it? Her eyes flickered back to the grey square again. No price. It could be free. She tapped on it.

The square expanded to fill half of the screen. Below it, the words ‘Happy time fun‘ appeared in tiny print. It had to be a scam. A virus that would brick her phone at best. She was about to go back when she spotted the review score. Five out of five. She swiped down and read the reviews.

Don’t be put off by the shoddy icon, this game is really addictive. A real indie project too, no micro-transactions. Just don’t expect to get past level thirty. (5/5)

OMG! Downloaded this 4 a laff on my old phone. Stayed up half the night playing. Awesome 🙂 (5/5)

The list went on and on. Each review looked real. There was enough variation in register, syntax and tone to tell her brain that humans had written them. There were enough grammatical errors, mispellings and sloppy phrases to tell her that whoever wrote the reviews hadn’t been paid for them. She tapped the icon.

A pop-up appeared: ‘This app collects personal data in order to improve the user experience.‘ She tapped it without thinking. A few seconds later, the program downloaded. She opened it.

To Laura’s delight, it was a fun game. As simple as Tetris, but with all of the complexity of chess. Sure, the animations were a bit primitive and the sound effects reminded her of computers in old ’90s TV shows, but that didn’t matter. It was fun.

Every now and then, her phone pinged and buzzed. Laura didn’t care about the notifications. The Facebook messages could wait. She reached level thirty. The review was right, it was tough. Something tinkled behind her. The wind howled. She almost beat the level. Nearly. Another go.

As the blade whipped across her throat as swiftly as a bullet, Laura barely registered the single second of stinging pain. Her final thought before the choking darkness engulfed her was ‘Goddamn it, I was so close.’

The masked man stood over the cooling body. An unseen smile played across his lips. As he wiped his knife on his lucky cloth, something buzzed in his pocket. He trembled with glee. Peeling off his gloves like a surgeon after a long operation, he tapped his phone. So many downloads, so little time….

There was half an hour to spare and the rain had picked up. Steve thought about ducking into a cafe and passing the time there, but there wasn’t a good wi-fi signal and it was four quid for a cup of coffee. The wind howled and gnawed at him. He scanned the high street. Betting shop. Cafe. Clothes shop. Cafe. Abandoned shell. Cafe.

Then, salvation. The bright expanse of the chain bookshop beckoned to him. Fond memories flashed through Steve’s mind. Those halcyon days where he’d lose himself in these temples to literature every couple of weeks. With a stifled laugh and a whisky-warm glow of nostalgia, he rushed inside.

The new book smell hung heavy in the air. Row upon row of pristine covers stared back at him. Each one featured either a muted neutral design that would go well with modern interior design trends or a single striking image that would look good in a tiny online thumbnail.

Whatever. He thought. Don’t judge a book by its cover. There were, after all, better things to judge a book by. Genre for starters. So, with that wisdom in mind, he slid past a shelf of literary novels – all of which proudly carried stickers proclaiming them winners of various awards. For half a second, he wondered if there were more awards than authors. A book with three stickers on it confirmed his theory.

As he turned the corner, the shelf shook. A 900-page boulder crashed down mere inches from his head, clipping his shoulder and fluttering to the ground like a wounded bat. Ignoring the throbbing ache in his shoulder, Steve glanced around. No-one had seen it. Good. He knelt down and picked up the doorstopper. Winner of Britain’s foremost literary award. Figures.

Carefully sliding the book back onto the shelf, Steve resumed his search. A grey cliff face of gritty crime thrillers stared back at him. The crushing uniformity of it was only broken up by the occasional moody blue rectangle. He continued his quest.

The garish primary colours of the childrens’ section told him that he’d drifted off course. As Steve turned away, his eyes fixed on a multicoloured mosaic of spines. The titles sounded suitably dramatic. Steve’s eyes lit up. He reached for one of them. Sci-fi & Fantasy? He looked at the book cover. It contained a picture of a sullen teenager staring into the distance. Nope. Young Adult fiction.

He continued his search, giving the “Travel” and “Mind, Body & Spirit” sections a wide berth. His eyes fixed on three bookshelves wedged into a tiny corner. Above them, the words “Sci-fi & Fantasy” smiled at him. He rushed over to them. There were interesting books here – an assortment of classics, both past and present. After ten minutes of searching, he selected a couple of interesting titles. But, there was more to find. Where was it?

Steve kept walking. He passed a pastel rampart of romance novels before almost crashing into a random table of books. When he glanced down, he saw that it was filled with popular bestsellers. 3 for the price of 2! 70% off! He didn’t recognise a single title on the table. He kept looking.

For a second, Steve’s eyes lit up again. In a forgotten corner, a single sliver of darkness stood out. A solitary rectangle of gloomy, heavy spines. With a smile spreading across his face, he rushed over to it. Finally.

As he got closer, his heart sank. Above the shelves, the word “History” glowered at him. He turned away. It had to be somewhere.

The voice startled him: ‘Are you looking for something?’

Steve spun around. A bearded guy in a staff T-shirt stared back at him. Steve smiled: ‘Yes, I’m looking for the “Horror” section.’

The guy stared at him blankly: ‘Er… There might be a few Stephen King books in the general fiction section.’

Steve’s face went pale. He should have expected it. But, when he trawled his memories, there was always a horror shelf. Even when it was just a token row of books that was one-third Stephen King, one-third paranormal romance and one-third Victorian classics, it had always been there.

It wasn’t right. A bookshop without a horror shelf. Something in Steve’s mind began to come loose. Had he been gone too long? Was there no place in this trendy modern age for the simple joy of a blood-spattered paperback about giant flesh-eating rats? It wasn’t right! Steve started hyperventilating. His eyes bulged. His head ached. The guy took a step backwards and shielded his face.

What happened next never made the papers. It was overshadowed by the cataclysmic shock of an offensive celebrity tweet. Within days, the cleaning staff had finally managed to scrub Steve’s stubborn brain matter out of the carpets. The manager had returned the damaged books to the publisher. The police had issued an incident number. Life went on.

In a tiny window inside a tiny window, GialloBlade81 leant closer to the camera and put on an ominous voice: ‘Happy Halloween everyone! We’ve got a real treat for you tonight.’ Under the bright studio lights, his dark hair stood out like a tarantula above the pale zombie make-up.

Beside him, Elvirus23 tugged on one corner of her plush slime monster hat and gave the camera a wonky stare: ‘Oh god, it isn’t a horror game is it?’

Elvirus23 let out a conspicuous sigh of relief: ‘Whew! I was worried that you’d dug up some scary indie game or something like that. Can we just play the first couple of levels? The ghost house level used to scare the crap out of me when I was a kid. That spooky music!’

GialloBlade81 cackled: ‘Oooonly joking! Of course it’s a scary indie game!’ He leant forward and pressed a button. On the screen behind him, a start menu with the words EMPTY HOUSE: REQUIEM dripped ominously. The howling laughs of hidden clowns skittered through the air. A CGI cockroach scuttled across the bottom of the screen.

Elvirus23 flinched and glowered: ‘You fiend! You know that horror games give me nightmares for..’ She corpsed. Once her hissing laughter had subsided, she said: ‘Better cut that from the episode, Norman.’

GialloBlade81 flashed a puzzled glance at the camera. ‘Really, it’ll be funnier if we leave it in. I mean, it’s not like any of our viewers don’t know that I’m the one putting on the brave face and you’re the one who only acts scared. It’s ironic. Postmodern, even.’

Elvirus23 shrieked with laughter. Finally, she took a deep breath and put her slime monster hat back on. She fixed the camera with wobbly eyes: ‘B…But, you said we were playing Mario.’

‘One of the cannibal clowns inside the Empty House is called Mario. The developers were kind enough to share that intriguing fact with me when they sent us the game key.’

Elvirus23 made a show of covering her eyes and shivering. GialloBlade81 reached for the controller. Keeping his trembling fingers below frame, he pressed another button. The screen behind the presenters dissolved into the dilapidated hallway of a photo-realistic abandoned mansion. Lightning flickered through the gloom, illuminating dried stains on the flaking walls.

Keeping his voice under control, GialloBlade81 said: ‘Well, I’m giving this hotel a bad review on HolidayAdvisor when we get home.’

Elvrius23 opened her fingers and peeked out: ‘It had to be a haunted mansion, didn’t it? I can’t even go round National Trust museums thanks to those.’

‘Aren’t they usually only open during the day? Oh god, that would make a brilliant horror game. Just think of the number of restless spirits who roam the..’

Elvirus23 quivered theatrically: ‘No, don’t! Just get on with the game.’

He got on with the game. The first-person camera took slow, crunching steps through the swaying hallway. As it passed a locked door, loud banging and squeaking suddenly filled the air. GialloBlade81 barely managed to keep his composure. Beside him, Elvirus23 made a big show of screaming and falling off of her chair. As she climbed back onto the chair, GialloBlade81 ignored the furious pounding in his chest and kept playing.

He paused in front of the stairs. The only other place to go was a dark corridor. As he turned towards it, two red eyes glowed back at him. He nearly dropped the controller. Elvirus23 let out a piercing scream, worthy of any late-night movie. He took the stairs. Like the loading screens in the original Resident Evil, every creaking step seemed to take an age. He kept moving.

Neither of them heard the silent tread of oversized shoes behind them. It was only when the smell of greasepaint reached GialloBlade81’s nostrils that he dropped the controller and turned around. A giant motley clown towered above him, the smudged red smile on its face wider than ever before. GialloBlade81 tried to scream. Instead, his eyes widened. He clutched his chest and slumped forwards. His head hit the desk with a loud bang.

Fred chuckled: ‘I wish I could have seen the look on his face. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for that during editing.’ He glanced at the slumped man: ‘Sorry about that, Norm. It was Sophie’s idea.’

Norm said nothing. Fred’s voice trembled: ‘Norm?’

Sophie frowned: ‘Come on, Norm. That’s the oldest joke in the…’ She leant closer. A single droplet of blood dripped from the edge of the desk. This time, there was nothing fake about her screams.

Reza raised the scanner and swept it over the churned ground. On the screen, a thousand tiny fragments glittered like stars. He tapped a couple of buttons and waited. Five seconds later, a pop-up appeared: RECONSTRUCTION ALGORITHM COULD NOT RESOLVE DATA.

Muttering under his breath, he brought up a menu and set it to reconstruct multiple objects. A memory allocation error appeared. Reza twiddled with the amplification dial on the side of the scanner, hoping that getting rid of the smaller fragments would free up some memory for the processor. But, just after he started the process again, the air around him cooled by several degrees.

Without even thinking, he reached back and flipped up the hood of his anorak before returning to the screen. It was still processing. Curses and prayers competed for his attention. The air got colder. The little spinning thing on the screen moved slightly faster. Come on!

A reassuring ping echoed through the air. As Reza raised his head to the grey sky with relief, the rain fell. There was no small pattering of drizzle to give him a moment’s grace. One second, the air was cold and heavy. The next, it was a solid sheet of rain. Without even thinking, he hunched over the scanner and ran.

His feet squelched and slopped. He almost slipped. He kept running. Keep the scanner dry. He didn’t look up. He knew the route.

At least, he thought he did. As his shoulder slammed into the scorched trunk of an old tree, Reza realised that he was lost. The bare branches gave him little shelter. He ignored the ache in his shoulder and stayed crouched over the scanner. Worst case scenario, the rain will pass in six hours.

Luckily for him, he didn’t have to wait six hours. Above the furious pounding of the rain, Reza heard an intermittent slopping sound. Turning his head sideways, he saw a bright orange shape moving through the rain. A smile crossed his face. He kept crouching. Two minutes later, a hand touched his shoulder.

Beside him, Suzy shouted: ‘Come on! Follow me.’ She fumbled through her anorak and pulled out a plastic bag: ‘Cover it with this.’

As soon as Reza had got the scanner covered, they ran. It was only when the half-buried tube of the site station began to appear that Reza realised where he’d gone wrong. With all of the chaos of trying to get a reading before the day’s rains hit, he’d wandered into the neighbouring field. It was easy enough to do when your eyes were glued to a screen for hours.

Suzy held the door open as Reza rushed into the corrugated tube. Seconds later, she clanged it shut. Above their heavy breathing, rain pinged off of the roof like machine gun fire. The piercing smell of petrichor hung in the air. Reza fumbled with the bag and handed it back to Suzy. She placed it on the pitted wooden table before staring at the scanner screen. It was still working.

‘Did you get anything?’ Suzy sat down and reached for the scratched biscuit tin.

Reza pressed a few buttons on the scanner ‘Yeah. Hmmm…. Nothing in the database about it. Hold on, I’ll try a date extrapolation. Might be a few minutes.’

Pulling two misshapen biscuits from the tin, Suzy leaned over the scanner. On the flickering screen, a flat black ingot encased in shattered glass sat beside a loading bar. It made no sense whatsover. The glass couldn’t be there to protect whatever was inside it. Maybe it was some kind of emergency item, like the old fire alarms back at HQ? Suzy shook her head. Who would need a portable fire alarm?

She handed a biscuit to Reza. They ate in silence. The loading bar crawled forwards. Suzy smiled: ‘Have you got any idea what it is?’

‘My best guess is that it’s some kind of currency. The latest message from the London site mentioned finding thousands of items like this one amongst the bone fragments. The glass casing is a new touch, though. Maybe it was more valuable than the London specimens or something like that?’

The scanner pinged. They both stared at the screen. The number 2018 stared back at them. Reza laughed. ‘Typical.’

Suzy sighed ‘We got drenched for that? Another bloody void item.’

‘Don’t worry, we’ll piece it together eventually. I mean, we know it’s an early void item. So, it’s another clue.’

Suzy reached for another biscuit ‘Yes, but I was hoping for some real history. Some pre-2007 thing that actually told us something. It makes no sense! People before then had everything – recreational buildings, detailed machine-printed writings, tiny mechanical clocks and even reels of sequential images. Then, one year, they all just suddenly decide to start a two-century dark age. It makes no sense.’

Reza grinned and pointed at the plastic bag on the table: ‘I don’t know, they certainly knew how to make bags back then.’

‘A ghost?’ Jane glanced around the coffee shop. Her eyes fixed on a bearded man wearing an ironic Scooby Doo T-shirt. He tapped away at a smartphone, oblivious to the world around him. ‘I’d have thought zombies, or maybe robots? I don’t know what ghosts have to do with it.’

‘Think about it. When we were teenagers, a new remake of a Japanese horror movie would come out every few months. Then, in 2004, there were the “Saw” movies. Every Halloween, there would be a new one.’

Jane’s eyes widened: ‘Oh god, I remember those. Did you know, some people actually fainted during the third one?’

‘That’s exactly the point!’ Rachel took another sip of coffee. ‘People talked about them. They were popular. Horror movies were alive in those days. These days, it’s all superhero movies. And, every Halloween, they’ll trot out a remake of an old horror classic, a couple of horror-themed kids movies or a slightly edgier superhero movie. It’s like cinemas are haunted by the ghost of what horror movies once were.’

‘I never really thought of it that way before. I didn’t even notice. I mean, there are still horror movies.’

Rachel shook her head: ‘Yeah, but they’re like horror novels or heavy metal music. I mean, they’re there if you look for them. But, if you go back to the ’80s, they used to be mainstream. From everything I’ve heard, people who didn’t understand them used to moan about them all the time.’

Jane sipped her tea: ‘Well, at least people are moaning about other stuff these days. Although, does that mean no-one cares about the horror genre any more? Is it even still rebellious?

Rachel shrugged: ‘It used to be with comics. I mean, did you know that horror comics used to be a thing?’

‘Horror comics?‘ Jane laughed.

Rachel finished her coffee ‘Yeah, read some history. Back in the forties and fifties, they were the most popular type of comics. You know, Tales From The Crypt and all that.’

‘No, I don’t. Hey, wasn’t that a movie?’

‘Anyway, there was a big fuss about it back then. People howled about how they were corrupting the youth and all that nonsense. In the mid-fifties, the American comics industry introduced strict censorship rules. There were actual laws passed about it over here. And, of course, the only popular genre of comics that could survive were superhero comics.’ Rachel’s expression darkened. ‘They’ve been gloating about it ever since.’

Jane said nothing. Finally, she stuttered: ‘That’s… terrible.’

Rachel laughed: ‘You were right about Christmas though. Halloween is just like Christmas. A collection of mindless rituals that people go through just because something used to be more popular in the past.’

‘You mean, we’re like those miserable people who write to the papers every year moaning about how people have forgotten the traditional meaning of Christmas?’

‘Pretty much.’

Jane’s eyes widened. An icy chill shot down her spine. A silent scream died on her lips. Around her, no-one looked away from their smartphones.